Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
9
ARTÍCULOS RESULTADO DE INVESTIGACIÓN
Reflexiones sobre la contribución
de Solon L. Barraclough a
los estudios rurales:
algunas impresiones personales
CRISTÓBAL KAY*
Recibido: 2006-05-2
Aceptado: 2006-06-10
Resumen
En este artículo se analizan las principales contribuciones que el renombrado economista
agrícola SOLON BARRACLOUGH hizo a los estudios rurales, principalmente de América Latina.
También se describen aspectos de su vida profesional enfatizando su trabajo con la oficina
regional para América Latina de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Agricultura
y la Alimentación (FAO) desde finales de la década de 1950 y en especial con el Instituto de
Capacitación e Investigación en Reforma Agraria (ICIRA) en Chile. BARRACLOUGH fue uno de
los arquitectos líderes de los famosos estudios CIDA sobre la tenencia de la tierra en varios
países de América Latina. Es durante este período que llegó a ser uno de los expertos y activistas
líderes en reforma agraria y el empoderamiento del campesinado. Con su nombramiento como
director del prestigioso Instituto de Investigaciones de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo
Social (UNRISD) en Ginebra en 1977 él continuó su compromiso activo con los asuntos rurales
y campesinos tales como la seguridad alimentaria y la participación campesina así como
también con los problemas del medio ambiente y el desarrollo sustentable.
Palabras clave: reforma agraria, tenencia de la tierra, estructura agraria, estudios CIDA,
FAO, ICIRA, campesinos, seguridad alimentaria, agricultura sustentable.
Abstract
This article analyzes the main contributions which the internationally renowned agricultural
economist SOLON BARRACLOUGH made to rural studies, particularly in Latin America. It also
describes aspects of his professional career highlighting his work with the Latin American
*
Profesor Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]
de Desarrollo
CuadernosCuadernos
de Desarrollo
Rural (56),Rural
2006(56),
- pp 2006
9-28
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Cristóbal Kay
Regional Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) since
the late 1950s and especially with the Agrarian Reform Training and Research Institute (ICIRA)
in Chile. BARRACLOUGH was one of the leading architects of the CIDA studies on land tenure in
various Latin American countries. It is during this period that be became one of the leading
experts and advocates of agrarian reform and the empowerment of the peasantry. With his
appointment as director of the prestigious United Nations Research Institute for Social
Development (UNRISD) in Geneva in 1977 he continued to be actively engaged with rural and
peasant issues such as food security and peasant participation as well as with environmental
problems and sustainable development.
Key words: agrarian reform, land tenure, agrarian structure, CIDA studies, FAO, ICIRA,
peasants, food security, sustainable
Résumé
Dans cet article on analyse les apports principaux que l’Economiste agricole très connu,
Monsieur SOLON BARRACLOUGH a fait sur les études rurales, particulièrement de l’Amérique
Latine.
On décrit aussi des aspects de sa vie professionnelle en rapportant son travail avec le Bureau
Régional pour l’Amérique Latine des Organisations des Nations Unies pour l’Agriculture et
l’Alimentation (FAO) depuis les années 1950 et tout particulièrement avec l’Institut de
Formation et de Recherche en Reforme Agraire (ICIRA) au Chili. BARRACLOUGH a été l’un des
architectes lider dans les très reconnues études CIDA sur la propriété de la terre dans plusieurs
pays en Amérique Latine.
C’est pendant cette période qu’il est devenu un des experts et des activistes leaders dans le
domaine de la reforme agraire et la prise de pouvoir des paysans. Par sa nomination comme
Directeur de l’Institut de recherche des Nations Unies pour le Développement Social (UNRISD)
à Genève en 1977, il a poursuivi son engagement actif avec les affaires rurales et paysannes
tels que la sécurité alimentaire et la participation paysanne ainsi que sur les problèmes de
l’environnement et le développement durable.
Mots clés: Reforme agraire, propriété de la terre, structure agraire, études CIDA, paysans,
sécurité alimentaire, agriculture durable.
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
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Introduction
SOLON BARRACLOUGH was a socially concerned scholar, consultant, policy
advisor, administrator and, above all, public intellectual who had his feet
firmly on the ground. He had a great ability to focus on key development issues
in his own work as well as set up first class research teams to investigate those
issues, inspire their work and marshal the required material resources to
undertake these enterprises. While he was not one of the most prolific writers
his publications are distinguished by their relevance, clarity, poignancy and
deep commitment for improving the livelihoods of the poor, the excluded and
the voiceless. He belonged to the generation of outstanding researchers on
peasant and agrarian issues such as RAFAEL BARAONA, THOMAS CARROLL, JACQUES
CHONCHOL, PETER DORNER, ORLANDO FALS-BORDA, ERNST FEDER, ANTONIO GARCÍA,
CYNTHIA HEWITT DE ALCÁNTARA, GERRIT HUIZER, ERICH JACOBY, ANDREW PEARSE,
R ODOLFO S TAVENHAGEN , W ILLIAM T HIESENHUSEN , D OREEN W ARRINER and
MARSHALLWOLFE. Most of them were his friends and only few survive him. His
rich life-experience led him to the conviction that rural development is
basically a problem of the distribution of power and the mobilisation of social
forces to bring about the necessary changes for a peasant-based development
strategy.
BARRACLOUGH was born in Beverly, Massachusetts in 1922 and was brought
up in a family-farm environment in New Hampshire, USA. He began his
professional career as a mathematician and physicist having graduated with a
BSc. in mathematics and physics from the University of New Hampshire,
Durham (NH) in 1943. Largely because of the Wold War Two, where he did
his military service in the Philippines and later in occupied Japan, he got
interested in development issues and decided to study economics ‘to find out
how things really were’. He went to Harvard University from 1946 to 1949
where he was taught by Joseph Schumpeter and Wassily Leontief and received
his MA and PhD in economics. For his doctorate he studied under John D.
Black and John Kenneth Galbraith. At Harvard he read a book by Joan
Robinson, a distinguished economist at Cambridge University, where ‘she
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Cristóbal Kay
said that the main reason for studying economics is not to be taken in by the
economists’ (BARRACLOUGH, 1975: 22). He mentions this as he does not think
that economists have any solutions to problems any more than any other
‘scientists’.
His first work in the rural development field was in the United States as an
economist in the U.S. Forest Service. Then he got a job as an Associate Forester
in charge of farm forestry aspects of a rural development project and became
co-manager of a large cotton, livestock and forest estate which had been
donated to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville (TN) and had become part
of its Agricultural Experiment Station. The estate was largely worked by black
sharecroppers and wage workers. BARRACLOUGH was appalled by the poor
living conditions of the black sharecroppers and developed various initiatives
to improve their welfare but this brought him into conflict with the local
authorities, especially with the neighbouring white farmers and the White
Citizens Council of Fayette County, who complained that he had raised
forestry wages, shortened the work day, introduced incentive payments and
similar innovations as well as addressing ‘Negroes as Mr. and Mrs’.
(BARRACLOUGH, 1965: 108).
The pragmatic engagement and activism of BARRACLOUGH has been stimulated
by his grandmother. As BARRACLOUGH (1975: 31) recounts: ‘I was brought up
in the Calvinist tradition. My grandmother who taught me that tradition said,
“Boy, you can’t change anything but the worst sin is not to try.”’ In his case
it inspired him to action by seeking to improve the livelihoods of the poor.
BARRACLOUGH spent a lifetime working on rural development, with poor
landless blacks from the mud of the Mississippi basin in the US to wretched
rural labourers in the South, principally in Latin America where he lived and
worked for about 18 years from 1959 to 1977 on research and training projects
connected with agrarian reform and peasant livelihoods and continued to
travel to the region thereafter on consultancy assignments from his base in
Geneva.
During his period in Latin America he was based most of the time in Chile
from where he travelled to several other countries in the region. His arrival in
Chile proved to be a turning point in his life. He was employed by the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which has its Latin
American regional office in Santiago, first as Land Economics Expert for Chile
from1959 to1961, then as Regional Officer for Land Tenure and Agrarian
Policy in Latin America, and subsequently as Project Manager of the Chilean
Agrarian Reform Training and Research Institute (ICIRA) from 1964 to 1973.
Even after leaving Chile, in rather tragic circumstances, he remained deeply
attached to its people and concerned about their fate and well-being.
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
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As a consequence of the military coup d’état in Chile, on the 11th of
september 1973, he could no longer continue his work in Chile, although he
belonged to the UN system and thus had diplomatic immunity. But he had
become too involved with the agrarian reform in Chile and thus had become
a hate figure for landlords, right-wing politicians and the military. After a brief
interlude as consultant of the FAO in Rome, Jamaica and Geneva he became
an FAO/United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) project manager of
the National Agrarian Training and Research Programme in Mexico from
1974 to1977 which he helped to set up. He then was appointed Director of the
United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) in
Geneva in 1977 where he lived by Lake Geneva, on the French side, for the
remainder of his life until 2002. For much of his life he was associated with
Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, first as Professor of Agricultural
Economics from 1963 to 1964 and thereafter as Adjunct Professor until 1983.
First personal impressions
I retain a vivid image of my first encounters with SOLON BARRACLOUGH back in
my student days in Chile in the mid-1960s. At the time I was following a course
he was giving on agrarian reform and rural development in the University of
Chile in Santiago. We were a small group of students and he asked us to come
to his office which was rather spacious. He then was the FAO/UNDP project
manager of ICIRA in Santiago. For a professor to give his lectures in his office
was highly unusual, if not odd. But so was his teaching method which was
informal and interactive, similar to a tutorial or postgraduate seminar in the
Anglo-Saxon university system, while we were accustomed to formal lectures.
We just put it down, given our provincialism at the time, to the idiosyncrasies
of this ‘gringo loco’, i.e. this eccentric and rather weird professor from the
United States, who also liked to smoke this rather big pipe during the sessions.
One day while we were waiting for him to arrive for his seminar we saw this
informally dressed man alighting from a large four wheel vehicle (it was a jeep
and not a SUV!) wearing boots which were all muddy. Meanwhile we as
students were all dressed very formally (in those days I was wearing a suit and
tie which I rarely do these days) as were our Chilean professors. This just
confirmed our view that he was an odd person. However, I could observe how
much he enjoyed doing field work and talking to the campesinos which
seemed to energize him. It also greatly enriched us as in his seminars he often
exemplified some analytical point using examples from his field experience.
Another event which greatly impressed me, but whose significance I only
discovered many years later, is that during one of his seminars he talked about
values, beliefs and objectivity in social sciences instead of the usual models of
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economic growth and agricultural development. He turned to his bookshelf
and took out a very fat book which seemed to me to have about 2000 pages.
The title of the book was An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and
Modern Democracy by Gunnar Myrdal. I had read a book by Myrdal on
underdevelopment and was surprised the see that he had written a book on the
plight of the Afro-American population in the United States of America. It was
one of the first books he had written, being published in 1944, well before his
well-known writings on the developing world. SOLON BARRACLOUGH turned to
the back pages of the book, to what turned out to be appendices, in which
Myrdal wrote about valuations, beliefs, facts and ‘hidden’ biases in social
sciences as well as presenting his own biases on the topic. I think that Myrdal’s
approach to social sciences greatly influenced BARRACLOUGH as he was acutely
aware that the conclusions reached in social science analysis are not independent
from value judgement and biases. He particularly castigated those economists
with their fancy econometric models who pretended to be ‘scientifically
objective’ exposing their underlying or hidden biases, premises or prejudices.
Today I can only conjecture that he probably came across this fat book (which
was largely marketed in a much abridged version which does not have these
crucial appendices) not because of his interest in methodology or values in
social sciences but because of his early involvement with black people (in
those days the term ‘negro’ was in common usage). This is a facet in
Barraclough’s life which is not commonly known but which in my view is
crucial for understanding his commitment to the plight of the landless and poor
peasants in the developing world.
Latin America’s Agrarian Structure
The first major assignment, which brought BARRACLOUGH to wider prominence,
was as head of the land tenure project of the Inter-American Committee for
Agricultural Development which is known by its Spanish acronym CIDA Comité Interamericano de Desarrollo Agrícola. CIDA was set up following a
resolution by the Punta del Este Conference of 1961 by the Organization of
America States (OAS). At this meeting the declaration of Punta del Este was
signed by all member states and which recognised the need for land reform.
BARRACLOUGH was rapporteur for the sub-commission drafting the declaration
on agrarian reform. This conference also launched the Alliance for Progress
which was a development aid and cooperation programme largely driven by
the newly elected administration of J. F. Kennedy in the USA so as to regain
the initiative in hemispheric relations after the Cuban revolution of 1959. The
presence and speech by ERNESTO ‘CHE’ GUEVARA, as representative of the Cuban
revolutionary government, attracted much attention in this meeting at this
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seaside resort in Uruguay. CIDA was a collaborative venture between five
international organizations: the OAS, the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB), the Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences, known today as
the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
The research teams, under the general direction of BARRACLOUGH, produced
many lengthy reports on land tenure and development in many Latin American
countries which collectively were referred to as the CIDA studies. Each
country report was written by an expert and the studies authored by RAFAEL
BARAONA on Ecuador, Ernst Feder on Brazil and Marvin Sternberg on Chile are
particularly noteworthy. Reports on seven countries were published: Argentina (1965), Brazil (1966), Colombia (1966), Chile (1966), Ecuador (1965),
Guatemala (1965) and Peru (1966) followed subsequently by reports on El
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico and Venezuela. The CIDA reports of
Bolivia and Venezuela were never published, in the latter case because of
political opposition. While the reports of Chile and Mexico were published in
book form, the remainder only appeared in a limited offset edition as
opposition to their wider circulation developed within the OAS and the US
State Department in Washington D.C. in response to pressure from the
international lobby of Latin American landlords. Nevertheless the CIDA
studies had a major influence on shaping a certain view of the Latin American
agrarian question as well as on the design of agrarian reform policies. They
revealed the full depth of the peasantry’s tragedy as well as the highly unequal
and bimodal land tenure system in Latin America. The CIDA studies were used
by peasant organizations, activists, progressive politicians and reformist
governments to lend scientific weight to the case for agrarian reform legislation.
To this date the CIDA studies remain the most comprehensive analysis
ever undertaken on the agrarian structure in Latin America and have proven
to be a milestone in rural studies in the region. The excellent article by
BARRACLOUGH and DOMIKE (1966) provides a comparative analysis of the seven
country studies on land tenure and development. It was published also in
Spanish, reproduced in several publications and was widely circulated. It was
a path breaking and seminal article which had a major influence on subsequent
agrarian studies of the region. BARRACLOUGH (1973) later edited a book on the
basis of the various CIDA country reports which provides a wealth of
information. It shows that Latin America had one of the most unequal agrarian
structures in the world. At one extreme were the minifundistas or small
subsistence peasant farmers and, at the other extreme were the latifundistas or
landlords who owned large landed estates. By 1960 the latifundios constituted
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Cristóbal Kay
roughly five per cent of farm units controlling about four-fifths of the land
meanwhile the minifundios comprised four-fifths of farm units but had only
five per cent of the land (op. cit.: 16). The middle-sized farm sector was
relatively insignificant. Subsequent studies have shown this bimodal
characterization to be over-exaggerated as tenants had a significant degree of
control over resources within the estates and medium farmers had access to
better quality land and were more capitalized. Despite this evidence of greater
heterogeneity, Latin America still had one of the most polarized agrarian
systems in the world.
The CIDA studies and BARRACLOUGH argued that this agrarian system was
inefficient and unjust. On the one hand, latifundios underutilized land by
farming it in an extensive manner and leaving a significant proportion
uncultivated. On the other hand, minifundios were wasteful of labour, using
too much labour on too little land. Not surprisingly, while labour productivity
was much higher on latifundios than on minifundios, the reverse was the case
regarding land productivity. Average production per agricultural worker was
about five to ten times higher on latifundios than on minifundios, while
production per hectare of agricultural land was roughly three to five times
higher on minifundios relative to latifundios (op. cit.: 25-27). This undisputable
evidence was the main economic argument put forward in favour of land
redistribution as it proved that this latifundia-minifundia land tenure system
was a major obstacle to development. The argument was further strengthened
with data on the extreme low living conditions of the majority of the rural
population and the social and political instability that this poverty and social
marginalisation created.
From the ‘flower pot’ agrarian reform to the social
revolution in Chile
In Chile BARRACLOUGH experienced three very different administrations at first
the conservative government of JORGE ALESSANDRI (1958-1964), then the
centrist Christian Democrat government of Eduardo Frei (1964-1970) and
finally the socialist government of SALVADOR ALLENDE (1970-1973). All three
governments implemented agrarian reforms which escalated from a few
expropriations during Alessandri’s ‘flower pot’ land reform to the expropriation
of all large (and even some medium-sized) landed estates regardless of their
degree of efficiency during the Allende years. But it was during the Alessandri
administration that ICIRA was created with FAO and UNDP co-operation.
BARRACLOUGH became its international director in early 1964. Well over half of
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the country’s agricultural land had been expropriated by 1973 and most of it
during Allende’s government. BARRACLOUGH became increasingly involved in
this process and to some extent even shaped it although always from his
position as an international civil servant. During this period Chile was living
through major social changes culminating in Allende’s social revolution and
Pinochet’s counter-revolution.
If already during the Alessandri government landlords were enraged with
the changes brought about by the land reform it is easy to imagine that they
wholeheartedly welcomed the military coup and conspired in the overthrow
of Allende’s government. The following comment by BARRACLOUGH (1968: 11)
is revealing of the changes happening in Chile at the time and which explain
the radicalization of the peasant movement: ‘In Chile, where a few traditional
landlords have recently lost their lands through an extremely modest effort at
agrarian reform, do you know what many of them resent the most and would
be willing to go to almost any lengths to rectify? It is not the loss of wealth or
even land, but that the “campesinos” are no longer humble and deferential’.
ICIRA with its high-powered international staff together with its highly
qualified Chilean staff trained hundreds of peasant leaders of the reformed
sector (the expropriated farms), so as to improve their administrative capacity
of running the newly expropriated estates, as well as hundreds of civil servants
engaged with the agrarian reform process. Furthermore, thousands of
technicians and campesinos had attended short technical courses. ICIRA staff
also supported peasant organizations and helped to promote more campesino
participation in agricultural planning at local and national levels. Furthermore,
ICIRA experts gave technical assistance in formulating agricultural policies
and programmes to the Ministry of Agriculture and the various government
agencies dealing with rural matters. Some of the best research on agrarian and
rural matters in Chile was undertaken by ICIRA staff and ICIRA’s library was
building up one of the best collections on agrarian problems in Latin America.
Many first rate books and brochures were published including several by
BARRACLOUGH. Among the international staff I recall the Brazilians PAULO FREIRE,
AMINO AFFONSO and PLINIO SAMPAIO, who had occupied high government
positions in Brazil, in some instances ministerial, before coming to Chile as a
consequence of the 1964 military coup d’état in Brazil and some of them were
called upon high office again after the restoration of democracy in Brazil in
1985. Other international staff included the FRENCHMEN PATRICK CASTEX and
MICHEL LANGAND, the Colombian ANTONIO GARCÍA, the Argentinian JUAN CARLOS
MARÍN, the Franco Belgian ARMAND MATTELART, and the British Andrew Pearse,
among many others. The Chilean staff was generally younger and included
researchers like DAVID ALALUF, JORGE ECHENIQUE, SERGIO GÓMEZ, EMILIO KLEIN,
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EUGENIO MAFFEI, ANDRÉS PASCAL, ALEJANDO SAAVEDRA, ALEXANDER SCHEJTMAN and
HUGO ZEMELMAN, among others.
With the military coup almost all the ICIRA staff had to go into hiding, seek
asylum in foreign embassies and go into exile, in some cases for the second
time in their lives. The ICIRA offices and the private houses of most ICIRA
personnel were raided, including Barraclough’s, and in many cases their
books and papers were destroyed or confiscated. After disbandment, the
former ICIRA staff retained a high regard for BARRACLOUGH and many remained
his friends despite being scattered in different parts of the world. By coincidence
BARRACLOUGH was at a conference in Israel presenting a paper on the day of the
coup. He could not have imagined the relevance that his paper would have
which can be gauged by its title ‘Latin American agrarian reform in action: a
discussion based upon the Chilean experience’. He was strongly advised not
to return to Chile by the FAO headquarters in Rome as he had become persona
non grata. ICIRA’s publication programme was accused of fomenting political
subversion and several tons of teaching materials were destroyed, for the most
part, literacy materials and pamphlets for training campesinos. In the months
before Allende’s overthrow the campaign by the political opposition against
ICIRA intensified being denounced as a centre of Marxist subversion, for
using its printing press to publish documents against the armed forces, of using
UN vehicles for political agitation and for helping illegal armed subversive
groups. These accusations were without any real basis and were made as part
of the general campaign against Allende’s government and its agrarian reform
programme.
To illustrate the rapid changes that Chile was undergoing the following
experience by BARRACLOUGH is illustrative. In 1960 while working on agrarian
policy in Chile he wrote a memo suggesting reforms in legislation on the use
of irrigation water. It was returned with a note by the then Minister of
Agriculture saying it was a ‘communistic’ proposal. But the reforms he had
proposed were based on US federal irrigation legislation by a republican
administration at the end of the nineteenth century! Ten years later ALLENDE was
elected to the presidency supported by the socialist and communist parties.
During Allende’s government the US administration adopted an increasing
hostile attitude which meant that many US citizens were viewed suspiciously
by many Chileans. But progressive Chileans made an exception of BARRACLOUGH
as they knew that he was on the side of the common people and in a way he
was adopted as an honorary Chilean (despite retaining a strong US accent in
his Spanish). BARRACLOUGH condemned the US involvement in the overthrow
of Chile. He thought that the US government could not separate the real from
the rhetoric. ‘Shortly before the coup a U.S. diplomat in Santiago expressed his
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19
frustration well when I suggested that the growing US pressures on ALLENDE
could be harmful to long-term US interests by encouraging a coup and
destroying democracy in Chile. His reply was that only “do-gooders” worry
about democracy to the exclusion of other US interests such as protection of
US property and military cooperation’. (BARRACLOUGH, 1983: 29) But he
realized that the US regime wanted the overthrow of Allende’s government as
its success would have contradicted one of the most cherished US tenets about
the cold war and the nature of the ‘communist threat’, especially as Allende’s
Chilean road to socialism was respectful of the Constitution and the country’s
democratic system.
Many years after the coup BARRACLOUGH (1994a: 424) in reply questions as
to why the Allende government did not pay more attention to women’s
participation and rights in the land reform process recounts that it was not for
lack of trying: ‘I accompanied a high Allende government agrarian official to
meetings with land reform beneficiaries and listened to him try to convince the
peasants to allow women to be full co-operative members. Their reply was
invariably something like this: ‘We always have voted for “Don Salvador”
(ALLENDE), but if he insists that our wives and daughters neglect their household
tasks and children to help run our co-operative, he shouldn’t count on us in the
future’.
The remarkable unrisd years
Is it a coincidence that he lived the last years of his life in Geneva? What surely
attracted him to Geneva is the possibility of influencing developments in
favour of the poor by locating himself at one of the centres of the UN system.
I presume he could have gone to work with the FAO in Rome where the
Vatican is located. But instead he went to Geneva where Calvinism had one
of its major strongholds and which could have reminded him of his Calvinist
upbringing. Leaving speculations aside there is no doubt that his directorship
of UNRISD in Geneva from 1977 to 1984 was most successful and where he
was an inspirational force to an array of international scholars and development
practitioners. BARRACLOUGH was a good judge of a researcher’s ability, had a
special flair for forming research teams and was able to attract the best talent
for his projects. He was a person who inspired respect and confidence for his
fairness and firm principles and who encouraged people to develop their
talents. His main research focus shifted to a variety of new issues which can
generally be encompassed under the broad theme of sustainable development.
After his ‘retirement’ he continued his links with UNRISD as Senior
Consultant retaining an office in the Palais de Nations building where UNRISD
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is located as well as many other UN institutions. He also undertook many
consultancies for a variety of institutions such as the South Commission,
IFAD, IIED, ILO, Oxfam, TNI and WWF. As an internationalist BARRACLOUGH
was a great believer in the United Nations system as a vehicle for achieving a
more equitable and humane world. But he was aware of its limitations and thus
suggested reforms. He often referred to RICHARD H. Tawney’s (1932) book
Land and Labour in China, which the ILO and the old League of Nations in
Geneva had sponsored, as an outstanding analysis of agrarian problems and
as indicating an early concern for social matters by the forerunner of the UN.
At the beginning of his tenure in UNRISD BARRACLOUGH commissioned
Andrew Pearse, a former colleague of ICIRA, to write a book on the green
revolution (PEARSE, 1980). This drew on the various studies of a multidisciplinary
team on the social and economic impact of the green revolution in Africa, Asia
and Latin America which UNRISD had undertaken during the first half of the
1970s under the leadership of Pearse. Until this day this is one of the most
insightful books to have been written on the green revolution and it clearly
influenced Barraclough’s view on it. According to BARRACLOUGH the impact of
the green revolution was shaped not by the technology itself but by the social
and political structure within which it is introduced.
One of Barraclough’s first major achievements at UNRISD was the
launching of the popular participation research programme which ANDREW
PEARSE had proposed and helped to set up as co-director in the late 1970s by
resolutely shaping its goals and methodology. Over 20 research reports were
published by UNRISD on this key topic during the 1980s well before any
World Summit or World Social Forum had began to focus on social participation
and other social issues. While some of researchers on this project were wellestablished figures most were at the beginning of their career and have
subsequently become major figures in their own right. This to some extent
reflects Barraclough’s ability to spot and foster young talent and he was
particularly keen to promote researchers and activists from the Third World.
Due to his untimely death in 1980 PEARSE was not involved in the main study
which emerged from this major project which was authored jointly by
MATTHIAS STIEFEL, who closely collaborated with PEARSE as co-director of the
project and subsequently director, and Marshall Wolfe, who BARRACLOUGH had
met in Santiago in the 1960s where Wolfe was working for ECLAC doing some
pioneering work on social policy (STIEFEL and WOLFE, 1984).
Following his social concerns BARRACLOUGH launched the Food Systems
and Society project in UNRISD which was particularly concerned with the
issue of food security. Furthermore, his sympathy for the Sandinista revolution
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
21
in Nicaragua in 1979 led him to write a report on the food system in Nicaragua
(BARRACLOUGH, 1982). He later widens his canvas to Central America reaching
the conclusion that the region’s historical pattern of economic growth based
on a few agricultural commodity exports has led to economic and social
polarisation in the region, to high levels of food dependence from the USA and
to food insecurity (BARRACLOUGH and MARCHETTI, 1985). For BARRACLOUGH
(1996) food security and secure access to land by the rural poor are intimately
linked. Thus, to achieve food security it is necessary to mobilise the rural
masses so as to undertake major land redistribution, enhance production for
the national market and prevent any attempts at destabilisation of the
governments who implement such profound transformations. However, based
on his experience of Chile and Nicaragua BARRACLOUGH is acutely aware of the
dilemmas which policy makers face and which usually restrict their room for
action as many events are beyond governmental control. He highlights the
complexities faced during a process of profound agrarian transformation by
presenting several basic policy dilemmas such as those of participation,
accumulation, equity and globalisation.
Subsequently, as many countries in the region get torn by war and
violence, especially in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua he co-authors
a book which analyses food security issues within the context of a development
pattern which is exclusionary and leading to impoverishment (BARRACLOUGH
and SCOTT, 1987). But in this study the authors also refer to US government’s
involvement in the counter-insurgency and the tremendous economic loss and
human suffering which results from this intervention. They also advocate a
new approach for US policy in Central America which respects a country’s
right to popular-based national development.
The concern of BARRACLOUGH with food security culminates with his book
An End to Hunger? The Social Origins of Food Strategies (London: Zed
Books) published in 1991. The subtitle is very revealing as it shows Barrington
Moore’s (1966) influence on his work and emphasizes his search for the social
context of the agrarian question. He stresses the determinant role of socioeconomic structures and the systemic nature of food insecurity. In contrast
with the neoclassical belief that trade and market liberalization will automatically
induce growth, alleviate poverty and lead to food security he argues that the
opposite is often the case. He exposes the double-standards of US trade policy
by highlighting the strongly regulated and controlled agricultural markets in
the USA. He maps the livelihood crisis confronting rural populations in the
South due to the accelerating dissolution of self-provisioning peasant agriculture
and the lack of employment opportunities. He finds the social origins of food
strategies in the distinctive historical class formations and alliances of each
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Cristóbal Kay
country which determine the nature of their state and public policy which is
also shaped by external forces. Providing access to resources, particularly
land, to the rural poor is a key factor for reducing food insecurity. To achieve
this he emphasizes ‘peasant-based’ or ‘popular-based’ national development
strategies. But the elimination of hunger and poverty would also require
‘massive resource transfers from North to South, perhaps similar to the
Marshall Plan for rebuilding war-torn Europe’. (BARRACLOUGH, 1991: 234)
However, to what an extent such a proposal is realistic, as to generate the
political will for it is most difficult, remains an open question. Given this
proposal and his general commitment to economic security and social justice
it is no wonder that he has been described as a 1930s Rooseveltian Democrat.
In his book BARRACLOUGH develops further his earlier analysis of policy
dilemmas and adds, most interestingly, some pseudo-dilemmas of institutional
change. For example, regarding private versus public property he argues that
the debate is simplistic and hides deeper underlying issues as ‘property rights
are much too complex bundles of social relationships to be neatly classified as
public and private’ (BARRACLOUGH, 1991: 256). On market forces versus central
planning he finds that the debates are often equally arcane and irrelevant
posing a false dilemma. In his view ‘there will always be state intervention in
markets. The issue is how to devise economic policies and interventions to
direct market forces towards social goals. … The issue is never one of
intervention versus non-intervention, but what kind of interventions and how
much (ibid.: 258). He further states that the capitalism versus socialism debate
also poses a false dilemma. His closing sentences in the book, which were
written just before the collapse of the communist system in Eastern Europe,
deserve to be quoted for the for-and clear-sightedness: ‘Future historians may
lump together present day capitalist and socialist systems as interesting minor
variants of the same mode of production anyhow. For society to have a better
future there will have to be modifications in the international system as well as
in national ones. How to resolve these issues poses the real dilemmas’. (ibid.:
259)
On method, theory, practice and values
In his writings BARRACLOUGH eschewed grand theories which at times he found
esoteric, tautological or not helpful for the immediate task at hand, i.e. a
problem which needed to be resolved. He favoured the use of case studies and
concrete examples for his analysis, which he often garnered from his own field
trips, to illustrate his points. He found that most sweeping generalizations
obscure more than they explain and that it was always possible to select data
that would support any broad social theory or model. He was most critical
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
23
of authors who selected the evidence to support their convictions. Hence he
argued that one has to avoid building the conclusions into one’s premises.
Instead of grand theories he was more interested in understanding how
development affected ordinary people in diverse real life situations.
Furthermore, BARRACLOUGH disliked simplistic class analysis and the rather
sterile debate concerning modes of production which so captivated many
Marxist scholars in the 1960s and 1970s. But he also disliked ideologically
prejudiced scholars as shown in his statement that: ‘The editors seem to be
more concerned with showing that cooperative and collective farming is bad
per se, than in analysing these problems or, for that matter, in examining how
any farming system in a particular context might be rendered more productive,
democratic and equitable’ (BARRACLOUGH, 1980: 116). Thus to the questions of
whether collective farms are better than private farms or whether big farms are
better than small farms he answered that it all depends on the time, the place,
the situation and the criteria.
As for comparative analyses BARRACLOUGH reasoned that generalisations
across countries and regions tend to be misleading as, for example, deforestation
processes have to be understood in terms of interactions among time and
place-specific processes and institutions with divergent social and ecological
contexts. He argued for a pragmatic and nuanced approach to policy and
institutional reforms. In his view policy makers should critically analyse
proposed policies in specific contexts. Furthermore, there should be no
dogmatic presupposition about these benefits and disadvantages associated
with particular ideological labels. Consequently, Barraclough’s approach to
the analysis of social and development problems was evidence-based,
pragmatic, non-ideological, unprejudiced and historical as well as context and
time specific. Nevertheless later in life he did not shy away from making some
sweeping generalizations such as that: ‘Socialist revolutions in the twentieth
century … while they were anti-capitalist, anti-establishment movements, they
historically have served to speed up the incorporation of these populations into
the world capitalist system and perhaps on slightly better terms, they were
incorporated otherwise, in some cases not, in many cases, yes’.(BARRACLOUGH,
2002)
BARRACLOUGH was far from being an ivory tower intellectual as he continually
sought to influence public policy. He maintained that social researchers had
an obligation to use their position to try to influence social outcomes to the
advantage of those who were being excluded. He liked to cite approvingly the
writings of ROBERT L. HEILBRONER, ERIC J. HOBSBAWM, KARL MANNHEIM, BARRINGTON
MOORE (Jr.), GUNNAR MYRDAL, KARL POLANYI, NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN, RICHARD
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24
Cristóbal Kay
H. TAWNEY and MAX WEBER, among several others. This reflects to a certain
extent some of the intellectual influence over him.
While Barraclough’s pragmatism, empiricism, suspicion of grand theories
and dislike for academic jargon has many virtues it also has some drawbacks
as it limited his theoretical contribution. There is no particular concept or
theory that, in my view, one can attribute to BARRACLOUGH. In this sense his
legacy is very different to that of ANDRÉ GUNDER Frank or CELSO FURTADO, for
example. But his legacy has certain common aspects to that of RAÚL PREBISCH
as both had an ability to focus on key development issues and form high calibre
research teams to investigate them. Also both were activists within the UN
system and believed that the UN could be a force for good by bringing about
reforms nationally and internationally which would improve the human
condition. BARRACLOUGH, like FURTADO, FRANK and PREBISCH, was a fierce critic
of neoclassical thinking and neoliberal policies as he could witness their
negative consequences on people’s lives.
His criticism of a book which has become a classic in agrarian studies is
very revealing. It is a most perceptive and far sighted critique which reveals
his independence of mind and even-handedness as well as illustrating his
dislike for jargon and misuse of theory. The book I am referring to is by ALAIN
DE JANVRY (1981). It has been reprinted many times and is probably the most
cited book on Latin American agrarian issues. It is a book which has become
a classic and is perceived as being representative of a dependency and Marxist
perspective but which BARRACLOUGH does not see as doing justice to Marx and
Lenin or to Chayanov who is often seen as in opposition to them. In
Barraclough’s (1984: 642) view: ‘Lenin or Chayanov and the like may have
written in the search of abstract truth, but also they were writing in relation to
very concrete policy issues they hoped to influence in a particular time and
place. They might have emphasized quite different issues if they were writing
on Latin America today’. Furthermore, ‘One wonders what useful purpose is
served by talking about “junker” and “farmer” roads in Latin America when
neither category really has anything to do with the region. A few genuine
“junkers” did emigrate to Chile, Paraguay, Brazil, etc. and there are a few
farmers in the region in the English or North American sense. The Latin
American social reality, however, is very different and has little to do with
either’. (ibid.: 643). I, for one, beg to differ having extensively used those
categories myself for the analysis of the historical development of the Latin
American agrarian system.
In Barraclough’s defence I have to clarify that he is not against theory but
against a theory that provides the answers before one begins the inquiry. He
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
25
also does not approve of the careless use of data which he argues must be used
with great caution. He faults de Janvry’s use of data which he finds result in
misplaced precision and that they ‘are often more adornments to his text than
part of his analyses’. (ibid.: 644). He also critiques de Janvry’s belief that
peasant farming is inherently less efficient than large-scale capitalist agriculture.
In a telling sentence BARRACLOUGH (1984: 649) writes that ‘de Janvry’s analysis
is surprisingly similar to the neoclassical one he criticizes’ and that his
conclusions, like those of the neoclassical approach ‘seem to be dictated more
by their premises than by the realities they try to explain’. Certainly nobody
would dispute today that the over hundred articles which de Janvry has
authored, or more commonly co-authored, since his influential book was
published are written within a largely neoinstitutional, if not neoclassical,
tradition. It seems that even de Janvry’s marxisant phase of the 1970s was a
mirage but this is open to controversy.
Conclusions
Barraclough’s analysis and advocacy of agrarian reform remained the main
thread through his life from his first experience of the injustices of the estate
system in the US’s Mississippi delta in the mid-1950s, during his stay for
almost two decades in Latin America where it was central to his activities and
during his UNRISD period where his studies on food systems, food security,
the environment and sustainable rural development continued to be centrally
linked to the land distribution problem.1 Although he supported the rights of
women and indigenous peoples he did not tackle these issues in his writings.
Until the last years of his live he continued to explore new dimensions of
the land reform, such as the role of social actors and the state (BARRACLOUGH,
2001). Thus he viewed the central problem of rural development, poverty
eradication and social justice as stemming from the peasantry’s lack of access
to resources and to land in particular for which agrarian reform was just the first
step toward the emancipation of the peasantry and rural workers. For him land
reform had become an issue of basic human rights which continued to be
relevant in today’s age of globalisation, especially as in many countries of the
South the land and livelihood problems had become even more acute.
Although the World Bank recognised this problem and had put land reform
back on its agenda BARRACLOUGH (1999: 38) was critical of the neoliberal land
1
For some of his writings on the environment, see, for example, BARRACLOUGH 1995; and BARRACLOUGH
and GHIMIRE, 1995. As for his writings on sustainable rural development, see BARRACLOUGH et al.,
1997; BARRACLOUGH 2000; BARRACLOUGH 2005, among others.
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Cristóbal Kay
policies: ‘There was no evidence … that effective land reforms could result from
“market friendly” policies alone. Registering land titles and facilitating real
estate transactions between willing sellers and willing buyers do not by themselves
change power relationships in favour of the rural poor. In many situations, such
policies are likely to reinforce agrarian structures by providing large landholders
and speculators with additional legal protection, while leaving the bargaining
power of the poor unchanged or diminished’. Hence he was aware of the difficult
task for land reform due to the predominance of neoliberal policies and
concluded that ‘prospects for land reform look bleak, but they always do until
the process gets underway’. (BARRACLOUGH, 1994b: 21).
BARRACLOUGH donated part of his collection of books and papers to the JOSÉ
MARÍA ARGUEDAS library in Santiago which had been set up by his old friend
RAFAEL BARAONA and which has been incorporated into Chile’s National
Library. Thus in a way BARRACLOUGH returned to Chile, where he had spent
probably his most important years of his life and where he will remain in the
hearts and minds of many Chileans, especially the campesinos. But his legacy
has no frontiers and will endure in the lives of all those who benefited from his
grandmother’s advice as through his work he certainly enriched the lives of
many people in Latin America and elsewhere.
References
BARRACLOUGH, S. ‘No Plumbing for Negroes’, The Atlantic, 1965; 216 (3): 105109.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. and DOMIKE, A. ‘Agrarian Structure in Seven Latin American
Countries’, Land Economics, 1966; 42 (4): 391-424.
BARRACLOUGH , S.L. ‘Concepts of agricultural development and strategy
implications for behavioral change’, Conference on Stategies for
Behavioral Change in International Agricultural Development, Cornell
University, January 1968; 15-19.
BARRACLOUGH, S. Agrarian Structure in Latin America: A Resume of The CIDA
Land Tenure Studies. Lexington (MA): Lexington Book, D. C. Heath &
Co. 1973.
BARRACLOUGH, S. ‘The Political Realities’, The Bulletin (Lutheran Theological
Seminary, Gettysburg, PA), 1975; 55 (3): 22-31.
BARRACLOUGH, S. ‘Book Review of “The Political Economy of Collectivised
Agriculture: A Comparative Study of Communist and Non-Communist
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Reflexiones sobre la contribución de Solon L. Barraclough a los estudios rurales
27
Systems” edited by R.A. Francisco, B.A. Laird and R.D. Laird’, The
Journal of Development Studies, 1980; 17 (1): 115-117.
BARRACLOUGH, S. A preliminary analysis of the Nicaraguan food system.
Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development
(UNRISD), 1982.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. Some Reflections on United States Latin-American Relations
During the 1980’s. Paper prepared for the International Symposium on
Latin America and the European Economic Community in the 1980’s,
Université Libre de Bruxelles, 5-7 May, 1983.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. ‘Review of Alain de Janvry, The Agrarian Question and
Reformism in Latin America’, Economic Development and Cultural
Change, 1984; 32 (3): 639-649.
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BARRACLOUGH, S.L. (1994b). ‘The Legacy of Latin American Land Reform’,
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South. Geneva: South Centre, 2000.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. ‘The Role of the State and Other Actors in Land Reform’,
in K. B. GHIMIRE (ed.) Land Reform and Peasant Livelihoods: The
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Countries, London: ITDG Publishing. 2001; 26-64.
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BARRACLOUGH, S.L. (2002). Understanding Market Issues in a Globalized
World: A Reflection by Solon Barraclough. Typescript of interview of
S.L. Barraclough done by K.B. Ghimire on 12 November 2002.
B ARRACLOUGH , S.L. ‘In Quest of Sustainable Development’, UNRISD
Overarching Concerns, Paper No. 4, Geneva: UNRISD, 2005.
BARRACLOUGH, S. and MARCHETTI, P. ‘Agrarian Transformation and Food Security
in the Caribbean Basin’, in G. Irvin and X. Gorostiaga (eds.) Towards
an Alternative for Central America and the Caribbean, London: Allen
and Unwin. 1985; 154-193.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. and SCOTT, M.F. The Rich Have Already Eaten: Roots of
Catastrophe in Central America. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute,
1987.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L. and GHIMIRE, K.B.. Forests and Livelihoods: The Social
Dynamics of Deforestation in Developing Countries. London: Macmillan,
1995.
BARRACLOUGH, S.L.; GHIMIRE, K. and MELICZEK, H. Rural Development and the
Environment: Towards Ecologically and Socially Sustainable
Development in Rural Areas. Geneva: UNRISD, 1997.
DE JANVRY, A. The Agrarian Question and Reformism in Latin America.
Baltimore, NJ: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
MOORE (Jr.), B. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and
Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Harmondsworth: Penguin
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PEARSE, A. Seeds of Plenty, Seeds of Want: Social and Economic Implications
of the Green Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980.
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TAWNEY, R.H. Land and Labour in China. London: Allen and Unwin, 1932.
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